Advice wanted - Tyneside flat agreement roof repairs

COrd

Hi everyone


Wanting a bit of advice please. I own a leasehold first floor tyneside flat and need some repairs to the roof. The downstairs flat is currently vacant but I believe I need to contact the freeholder to ask permission for access to their yard to put up scaffold for the roof repairs. How would I go about contacting them?


Thanks!

eddddy

You should be able to search here and download the title register for the property for £3 here:
https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/QuickEnquiryInit.do

The downloaded title register will show the name of the registered owner.

Normally, there would be one title for the freeholder and another for the leaseholder - I assume that's also the case for Tyneside leases.

So I guess there would be a title for the freeholder of your flat, and another title for the leaseholder of the downstairs flat - but they would both be the same owner. But I'm not 100% sure of that.


Alternatively, when you bought your flat, you should have got documents with the name and address of your freeholder. (But they could have sold to somebody else since then.)

COrd

Thanks! That seems very sensible and for some reason didn't occur to me..! The freeholder of the downstairs flat is the guy I bought my flat from so I think he owns both properties. I am pretty sure I have his name and address on my documents from the purchase so I could write to him and ask permission. My other concern is, I need the roof to be fixed asap so I wonder if there is a requirement for his consent or if I can prove that I reasonably tried to get permission (by posting recorded delivery etc) and have had no contact could the roofers access the property?

AdmanPea

I would just get it fixed but then again that might not be the correct way to sort it. You could get the ball rolling but write to the freeholder just to let them know what you have lined up, I guess.

eddddy

Without going into all the legalities and the wording of your lease, it's probably the case that the neighbour cannot "unreasonably withhold consent".

So maybe explain that you need consent urgently, and then they would need a good reason not to give you consent urgently.

In any case, it doesn't sound like what you're doing is inconveniencing your neighbour, or damaging their property, or causing them any loss - so they probably wouldn't have the basis for any kind of claim against you.


In theory, they might argue that the lease allows them to do something like appoint a surveyor to check where the scaffolding will be put etc, to make sure it doesn't damage their property etc - and then charge you for the cost of the surveyor.

But that seems a bit extreme...


(Re: recorded delivery. If you want to be super-safe from a legal perspective, send the letter twice - once recorded and once non-recorded. Just in case the recipient refuses to sign for the recorded letter.)